Socialism vs Western Democracy

By Jian Shuo Wang on 2010-10-23 21:48 · China

Recently, more and more articles appear in party magazines about the topic of “Draw a clear line between Socialism vs Western Democracy” (source). That brought me to some interesting similar cases.

My friend told me when China first started to import movies from abroad, every movie needs a very long time to get approved. She asked why it takes so long. The person in charge said: It is very hard work to draw a clear line between socialism kiss, and capitalism kiss. If a kiss scene is socialism, it can be approved; otherwise, the scene needs to be cut or the movie rejected. What a joke!

30 years ago, the same question was asked again: drawing a clear line between socialism vs capitalism economy. It turned out that Deng Xiaoping’s “black cat, white cat” statement solved the puzzle, and pull people from meaningless discussion to do some real stuff.

30 years later, people’s ability of asking questions is not higher than asking “Whether this case is a socialism kiss, or capitalism kiss?”

16 Comments

Your point being what, exactly?

— Wombadan · 2010-10-24 14:46

Socialism? That's not a joke. That's a lie. That's a set-up.

— kl · 2010-10-24 15:19

I dont think you have socialism anymore, specially in economy, if something is still not there, it's some freedoms that are improving but very slowly...

what do you think?

— Claudia Frias · 2010-10-24 22:22

My point is, why care about -lism?

— Jian Shuo Wang · 2010-10-24 23:45

Nice headline. Accompanied by meaningless drivel.

— Green Hat · 2010-10-25 00:50

you all missed Jianshuo's whole point! He is saying nobody cares about ideologies anymore, as long as we're all free to make as much money as we want and can, nobody cares how we make our money. We in China still have a propaganda ministry. That is so cold war! The people who runs this department were all hypnotized during the last 30 years, they still think the Soviet Union exists, chairman Mao is still alive, American imperialists want to brainwash us, and the ultimate goal is to achieve "socialist utopia"! We need to take a baseball bat and whack these people!

— moni · 2010-10-25 08:15

Is USA trully capitalist? It is socialism that has destroyed US and western countries with their excessive social spending and handouts.

— Soon · 2010-10-26 03:54

Chinese are actually living a capitalist life thinking that they are living a socialist life.

— jqian · 2010-10-26 10:33

Soon, how can you say that US and western countries are destroyed? Yes we have problems, and China (and India) are growing faster than the US economically. But the fact is that the material standard of living in the US exceeds China's. Average pay is higher, and many things (Western-brand cars, non-shanzhai clothes and other goods) are cheaper. Even real estate is cheaper in most of the US than in Shanghai - the minimum price for a house with land is $1.5m USD in Shanghai, and you can get a decent house in most of the US for $250k.

I don't want to say that everything is perfect, but the US is still a pretty great place to live.

I also don't want to take away from China's (or Jianshuo's) accomplishments in the last 30 years, but, Jianshuo's life is not that of the typical Chinese person.

— TianQin · 2010-10-27 07:11

感谢楼主分享的好文章！！！

— 科霖环保 · 2010-10-27 11:32

Dear TianQin, You have forgotten that US is liviing on borrowed time (money). The rest of the world is financing US citizens' lavish and unsustained lifestyles. US outsmarted or fooled the world in Bretton Wood accord by removing gold backing on its currency. US dollar is not MeiJin anymore it is more like MeiYouJin.

JS life may not representative of all Chinese, but of 10% of China population or 1/3 of US population. Imagine if RMB appreciated another 20% against US dollars. The balance is tipped the other way.

Cheers

— Soon · 2010-10-29 09:06

请百姓网相关部门删除有关暴露个人隐私的信息。

具体网址请联系我email

— chen · 2010-11-01 14:13

关于百姓网发布关于个人身份信息的信息竟然也能审核通过？

我的身份证号码，

姓名，

都被某人发布在您网站上面，

而您的员工，百姓网bbs版主，对于这则涉嫌侵犯公民隐私权和名誉权的信息，也审核通过。

请相关部门立即删除掉该则信息。

否则引起后果自负。

找来找去找不到电话号码，相关部门负责这项事件，建议你们用个法律顾问或者多了解点法律知识，放在网站公约上面，

百姓网网站公约上面，没有规定如果侵犯公民隐私权该如何，我想您是个成功的商人，可是事无巨细的事情，您也该管管吧？

— chen · 2010-11-01 14:19

@Chen, please provide URL

— Jian Shuo Wang · 2010-11-03 01:14

I think China is more capitalistic than most European countries. The fake socialism is just there to

Keep the power to the CCP. The best mix of socialism and capitalism is there in Western Europe.

Health care for everybody, low poverty, not the extreme gap between rich and poor such as in the US or China. You'lle see the advantage of it in crime rate and peoples happiness!

— Michiel · 2010-11-13 23:12

America is more a type of 'inverted totalitarianism' than any normal expected form of democracy, so that will have a corrosive political effect on the rest of the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism

— cal · 2010-11-16 06:33